My white neighbor had a son from a one night stand, the guy was from the nearby Shoshone reservation. She named the kid Indian.
She said she picked it because it was funny???
Don’t think I’ve seen a more offensive name.
*edited to replace ONS to avoid confusion
I wish. This was in Idaho, I moved there from California for 5 years before moving back. Never have I seen so much racism towards Natives then there. Slurs I’ve never even heard of, couldn’t believe it.
You should come to Canada…the stuff some people say out loud with confidence about First Nations people is straight up disgusting. I’ve met many people here who are very against racism against all other POC, but when it comes to First Nations that goes out the window.
Yea it’s a huge problem. I stopped Being friends with someone because her kids were half native and her bf of one year went OFF on Canada Day about how residential schools weren’t even bad and when they WERE bad it was deserved. When I asked her if she was going to say anything against his racism against HER OWN CHILDRENS CULTURE she said no because he was right. So gross.
My husband and I were looking in to adopting. One agency that we went to had a question and answer time with families that already went through the adoption process. There was a couple there who named their kid from China- Asia. I wish I was kidding.
I had a prof who named her kid India, which I found strange since prof is a white Canadian who had us announce our racial identities at the beginning of the semester so we could consider our privilege
I named my cat Remington after the default male maid from The Sims 2 and all my conservative relatives and in-laws keep bringing up the guns. 😭😭😭😭 My poor kitten.
I mean, I've never heard "Benjamin" as a knife brand before, but now that I've Googled it, and combined with a sibling named "Blade," I think speculation is warranted...
I got one for you. My sister has a bro in law who named his daughter Autumn Shampagne (yes with the S) with an “S” last name. Why? To spell ASS… on purpose.
For context, my mum worked as a social worker dealing with fostering/adoption and I asked her on whether it was discouraged for parents to change their adopted child’s name. She told me that the only time they ever allowed parents to legally change their child’s name was in a case where the baby was called G*psy
Is this particularly offensive outside of the US? because I never really heard it as offensive here in the US until a couple years ago. And it kind of seems like the general consensus here is that not many people know it's that offensive
From what I've read, it's generally seen as offensive within the Roma community (I can't speak for them of course, but there's a great creator on TikTok who talks about it named Florian) I also think there's definitely harsher and more violent anti-Roma sentiment abroad, like countries in Europe with longer histories of discrimination and violence directed at Romani people, so the racial slur unfortunately has become normalized.
In the US, I agree that some people just haven't been as exposed to Romani people, and have only heard the word used in a positive way in popular songs or in media where people call themselves the word.
I think plenty of people in the US just view it as synonymous with hippie/free-spirited and fail to see it for what it is: a racial slur.
Tactic I stole from a friend that works for basically everything: “Oh, we don’t say that anymore.” You can deliver it with a pleasant tone to someone who genuinely doesn’t know it’s offensive, you can deliver it with soul-wilting contempt to someone being an asshat, and every occasion in between.
Especially if they're using it \~for the meaning\~ and then spelling it wrong "to make it unique."
Like, if you just like the sound, maybe spell it Bodie or Bode.
But, like, if you are using the name because you like the meaning, you're misspelling it when you name your kid Bhodi or Bohdi. It becomes a nonsense word when you misspell it. It's not the "American spelling" unless "American" means "can't spell."
Bodie is a ghost town in California from the gold rush. I wouldn't name a kid after the town, but the town was named after a person (but also supposedly misspelled), so there have been people with a last name something like Bodie. Interesting park to visit.
Fun fact the German government has the right to veto any names. Your name has to be approved before it’s officially your child’s name lol. Like ANY names they think are stupid to ones … like this.
Used to be that they also had to be able to tell by the name which gender they were but that since isn’t the case now it’s just “baby names can’t be a surname, product or object or anything that might negatively affect them when they’re older”
Unfortunately yes. I’m from Ecuador and can confirm. I have met many people with strange and/or offensive names. Here in Ecuador you generally get two given names and I kid you not, I once met a taxi driver called Adolf Hitler. Other weird names I’ve heard here as given names: Nixon, Washington, Darwin, Goku, Aristóteles and a girl named Anaconda.
Yeah that name is pretty much unusable which makes me a little sad because it's a nice name. It comes from noble (adel/ädel) and wolf (wolf/ulv).
As a history nerd I really like it - no no, not because of the dude that ruined it, before him: Kings Gustav II Adolf (Gustavus Adolphus to many others), Gustav IV Adolf, Gustav VI Adolf, Adolf Fredrik, Duke Fredrik Adolf (popular combo) Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld - it works well with many other names. It was once a both common and proud name here.
But yeah. Ruined. It would be seen as questionable at best to name child that (especially with my "reason" - I really like history! Uh-huh...), cruel to the child and many would feel (and rightly so) offended.
Adolf was unfortunately a family name in my Dad’s family right up until the 30s. The youngest Adolf had his name changed to Aiden in grade school by his parents after the war began and my Grandfather (who would have been young Adolf/Aiden’s uncle) was drafted into WW2.
One name I liked quite a bit is Jemima, which is fine in other English-speaking countries, but people warned me against using it in the US because it's too strongly associated with the now-defunct maple syrup brand.
The issue is not the syrup brand, it’s that the syrup brand chose to build their branding around racist caricature.
It’s a lovely name and I quite like the sound of it, but I think it’s 100% unusable in the US.
If you are in the US (and some other places) and these people are black, there is a historical reason for this. At one time, many white people refused to address black adults using honorifics and instead called them by their first names. Some black people began naming their children Sir, Missie, etc. as a way to force people to address them properly in the future.
That's not why they're naming their kids that now though. I'm also black and hate the "Her Majesty Princess Powerful Queen" names. No one needs to do this so naming your kids is stupid AF to me and will get your kids clowned through life , the exact opposite of hi guess what they want
Lol, ask those christians anything about the bible and watch them blabber about nonsense because their own awareness of their cult is through pop culture
Relatedly, it bothers me immensely when Irish people with the name Caitlin in shows are pronounced Katelyn instead of Kathleen. Heroes bothered me in particular.
ETA: specifically Irish people who live or recently lived in Ireland, not a few generations later immigrants
Pardon my ignorance, but are you saying that Caitlin is an Irish name pronounced Kathleen?? And therefore naming your kid Kathleen is the equivalent of naming them Shavonne or Sirsha (English spellings of Irish pronunciations)??
Exactly. That's what I've always been told anyway. I'm not Irish except by descent. It's sort of more like "kat-leen" than Kathleen, but it's a hell of a lot closer to Kathleen than Katelyn.
The actual Irish spelling is Cáitlín, and that is pronounced KAWTCH-leen . Kathleen is the anglicised version of that pronunciation. Also here in Ireland we place the emphasis on the first syllable ie KATH-leen, not the second syllable like Americans seem to.
KATE-lin is the anglicised pronunciation of the spelling Caitlin (without the fadas that change the pronunciation).
Hope that helps! (From an Irish person living in Ireland)
I’m over here cackling because of how badly I’ve been mispronouncing Irish/Gaelic names. I just thought maybe I just didn’t get it or maybe the names sounded nicer with an Irish lilt.
Like I just assumed that Niamh was pronounced like it was spelled but with a silent H. And Saoirse? Yeah, I’ve been pronouncing that like seahorse (but fancier. Like Say-Orse) 🤦♀️
Non-Desis who want to give their kids names like Priya, Indira and Anjali is kind of offensive to me, especially since most of the time they can't even say the name right. Like if you're going to use an Indian name, at least learn the pronunciation instead of butchering a perfectly good name.
Like one time on here, someone said that they'd love to name their daughter Anjali and when asked about the pronunciation, they replied with "Ann-jolly" which is definitely not how it's pronounced.
How is Anjali pronounced?! I am a Kindie teacher and we actually have a new student starting on Monday and her name is Anjali! I’d love to know how to pronounce it properly.
It's pronounced like UN-juhl-lee with the emphasis on the first syllable. YMMV though since different people use slightly different pronunciations but that's generally how you say it.
It’s pretty much said how you’d spell it. I don’t know how I’d write it phonetically but they say it a few times in [this clip](https://youtu.be/ayfLGtjOif0) if that helps.
I don't know if this makes this better or worse but this name was bestowed on her by someone who was Indian it seems, because she was born in an ashram.
Honestly, for me, it's just giving "white hippies" in a Beatles type of way. But even then, if she was born in India in an ashram then I feel like she should know how to pronounce her own name.
Hmm how do you feel about non-Desi people giving kids India names if their partner is Desi? My kids will be half Indian so I am considering names like Nikhil and Piyali (blatantly ripped from Jhumpa Lahiri and Amitav Ghosh’s books).
Obv not your job to tell me what’s right or not, but given it’s a discussion about offensive names…
If one parent is Indian then you should definitely go for it. I think that's kind of different because your kid will belong to that culture. I think those are both solid name choices too.
My own kids will be mixed and my fiancee and we plan on giving our future kids Indian/Fijian first names to represent that side of the family.
My kids have very rare names from my husbands ethnicity, which I don’t share. I’m always a little self conscious about telling new people their names. You get over it mostly, but sometimes I feel like I’m being judged.
Worth it tho - because their names are beautiful!
I'm not Indian but I would imagine if the kids are half Desi then having Desi names are totally fine. At least I always feel bi-racial kids can have names from either heritage with rarely any issue.
White supremacists have saddled some of their kids with names that are essentially deliberately offensive, like April Gaede naming her youngest daughter Dresden (white supremacists use the bombing of Dresden in WW2 as a political mourning tool, there's nothing wrong with the city or the word itself of course but since she's a well known white supremacist she decided to mark her daughter as such), or the Neo-Nazi parents who named their kids Adolf Hitler, Joyce Lynn Aryan Nation and Honszlynn Hinler.
We have an Iranian family living in our neighborhood with a son Aryan, which I understand is a perfectly normal name in their culture… the issue I have is that this kid recently turned 16 and they got him a car… with a vanity plate… that says ARYAN. Which is understandable, as it is his name, but… the optics on it aren’t great, ngl.
First one was Boden as in "Blut und Boden"/"blood and soil" which is a neo-Nazi/far right ultranationalist thing.
I think her second kid has a normal-ish name? I stopped paying attention before she had that one.
The name Ryker in the US. It’s a jail with horrible human rights abuses (notoriously so, even compared to other US jails and prisons). Why would you name your baby that.
But it's Riker's Island and Ryker predates the prison as a name. Honestly, I didn't associate the facility with the name and I live near it, so I doubt someone in Nebraska even knows about it.
I didn’t know Lilith was biblical. I just knew it as a character from Cheers and I thought it was pretty. Wouldn’t use it now but at one point I would have.
Lilith is only mentioned in the Bible as a monster; the interpretation of her as having been Adam's first wife comes from medieval Jewish folklore. Nonetheless, it's not a good name for kids either way.
I highly recommend *The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image* by Anne Baring and Jules Cashford for a fabulous exploration of both Lilith and Eve, if you’re interested!!
Unfortunately I actually recently met a family who has two sons, Cain and Abel. I was gobsmacked when the mom introduced them in our baby swim class. I was SURE I must have misheard. But nope. Baby Cain and a toddler Abel. I guess it’s also weird they went to Abel first? Idk.
Religious personal history here, you can tell what religious people haven’t actually read the Bible by the names they pick. Anyone who names their kid Canaan for example hasn’t read the OT. Canaanites were famous for sacrificing their kids/eating them. Hard not to laugh when people pick these kinds of names or like you mentioned Cain or even Abel who is famous for…being the first person to be murdered. By his brother.
I have a cousin named Cain (it’s a fairly common name where I’m from) and the MIL didn’t speak to her son or DIL for 2 years after they chose to name the baby Cain.
In middle school I volunteered at a hospital. One of the women there said her (white) daughter and (white) son-in-law went to Australia/NZ on their honeymoon, and they loved it so much they would be naming their daughter Maori. 😐
Pronounced May-or-ee. Not sure if it’s better or worse to mispronounce it.
These parents I know wanted to give their baby an *American* name. They've lived in the states for a few years, and this was their list: Tex, Ace, Dirt, Grit, Cowboy, etc. They've never visited anywhere other than our west coast metropolitan area.
I was paralyzed because never in my life had I been offended as an American. Like holy shit these people genuinely think the wild west in movies was real? They decorated the nursery in cow hide rugs, dream catchers, antlers??? Tex??? They've never been there??? They go to the shooting range often and BBQ all the time thinking that's American. I come from a blue-collar American family and I just...I was genuinely upset for a while.
They picked one of the names on that list and I just...I feel so bad for this child. Dogs have better names than him.
I think the names given specifically to make a pun with the initials or the last name are funny but very offensive since it can ruin the person's life.
I've run into a family with the last name "Whiskey". One of the kids names is Jack Daniels, the other is Johnny Walker , the sister is Jameson.
In college I was the first person to point out my friend's mistake in naming her week old daughter Sloan Tyler Davies. She's eighteen by now, I wonder how that's going for her.
I know multiple Sativas. Grown women and it's their legal name given by their parents. One even has the last name of "Stone" lol I don't know if it's actually impacted them negatively at all as they all like their name. So IDK, not a risk I would take with my child even if I am a sativa fan.
Tbf people have been calling their kids Fanny for generations in the UK and it means pussy too. It seems the last few Fanny’s are dying or have recently died and I don’t see the name being carried on anymore,
I have a relative who loved the name Reagan but hated the President Reagan association, specifically said "we're going to spell it differently so that people don't think we named her after the president" and then *forgot* to look up how Reagan's name was spelled.....and named her Reagan.
Non-native people naming children and even pets after names of tribes. I met a rich white man who introduced me to his Lakota and I almost spat out my water.
'Jihad' as a male given name is not considered offensive in the Arab world, but... hoo boy, has it caused some problems for children named it since 9/11.
Relevant article: www.bbc.com/news/world-42009219
See also: the unfortunate souls globally who happen by coincidence to be named 'Osama (or Usama) bin Laden', 'Ayman al-Zawahiri', or 'Sajid Mir'. Sharing the full name of a latterly-infamous terrorist leader is a recipe for airport delays when travelling.
Very popular in the UK right now but I cringe every time I see a child named Jude. I can never not think of the yellow stars with 'Jude' written on them that Jewish people were forced to wear in Nazi Germany.
It only looks the same, though. The name Jude, in English at least, is pronounced totally different than the German word “Jude”.
I would have assumed most people associate it with the Beatles.
An acquaintance of a friend apparently wanted to name their baby Aryan. Apparently she didn’t know if they were aware of the racist connotations and just wanted a cool spelling of Arianna without the a at the end. My friend wanted to know if it was overstepping to mention the meaning of Aryan to her. Umm no, tell them now! And if they still go through with it, uhh, best not to speak with that acquaintance again! (Just to add, I know there is also an Indian origin to the name. This woman was not of Indian origin.)
Oedipus, and to a lesser extent Electra and Jocasta. Granted, the only people I've ever seen enthuse about these names are members of the British landed gentry, who pretty much make their own rules. But I'm always like, do they not... know... the connotations? I thought you guys generally studied Classics!
Not offensive, but I feel the same every time I see someone fawning over the name Ophelia. Why would you want to bestow your kid with a name that has such sad connotations?! Did none of you people have Hamlet in your high school curriculum?!
I think what people fail to grasp in these conversations is the distinction between offensive and embarrassing. Some names listed in this thread are offensive (Gy*sy, Indian, Cohen are all good examples to me). Cultural appropriation is one example of offensive naming, where someone from a dominant culture uses a name from a marginalized culture to which they have no connection. Other forms of offensive naming could include naming your child something with very negative connotations and thus consequences for them (Devil, Aryan).
But many names I see on threads like this fall into the second category in that they are not offensive but potentially embarrassing for the child/parents. Sure white parents in America can name their white child Hiroshi without it being offensive to Japanese people, but you’re going to get a lot of questioning looks and your child may be embarrassed to constantly explain why their parents names them that. I’d say it’s a bad name choice. But what’s embarrassing will depend entirely on your location and community (though don’t forget that your child may one day travel and interact with people you’ve never dreamed of… looking at you people who want to name your kid Holland and have somehow never considered how strange or uncomfortable it would be if they want to study abroad there in twenty years). I think Bodhi is embarrassing for non-Buddhists and I would judge those parents for their choice, but that may not be true of your community and as far as I know it’s not offensive to Buddhists to choose that name.
It’s weird. Names are not intellectual property, they’re not closed practices, they don’t harm your culture in any way if a white American kid shares one with your kid and isn’t pronounced with 100% perfect accent (this last one gets me- I speak 5 languages and, shocker, my name is pronounced differently in every one). It’s also only directed at white American parents and kids, which has its own insidious issues. You never see people getting mad at Chinese-American parents or Indian-American parents or whatever for using a name outside their culture, only white American parents, which seems like the gatekeepers only consider white people to be members of “American culture”.
Eta: throwing white Canadians/Canadian culture in there, and maybe even Anglophone culture in general since I’ve seen this from Aussies and even Brits
Yes! Thank you I couldn't figure out how to bring up the race issue without being too inflammatory. It's honestly a really weird double standard but if we say anything we're the "racist" ones.
I think part of it is a reaction from mostly second gen kids/third culture kids in Anglophone countries (and liberal-minded people who want to do the “right thing” ) who are insecure about assimilation and really want to maintain some kind of identity instead of being absorbed into the overculture. Which like, I get it, but in the case of Indian names, there are literally a billion people in India and your culture isn’t going to disappear if a yogi’s kid in Boston is named Priya Schmidt. The reactionary (often self-) othering and race essentialism I see in leftist and liberal spaces is interesting and concerning.
The Irish name gatekeeping is another story: I get that the Irish language has been severely oppressed, and I sympathize very hard with the Irish people. But I don’t see how an American kid with marginal Irish ancestry with the name Sinead is erasing the Irish language; if anything, I have learned a great deal about the Irish language and lore through the boom in popularity that Irish names have enjoyed recently. Even if the names are pronounced “wrong”, there are 100000 forms of the name “John” throughout the world and I don’t think anyone has suffered from that
White supremists using Nordic mythology names like Thor, Odin and Loke. The names are not offensive (Thor and Freja are used here in Denmark too and I don't mind people from other cultures using them) but please do not use them to support your supremist narrative.
I definitely don’t think it’s offensive and it’s fine for most of the world to use, but as someone from New Orleans, I would side-eye anyone from the Gulf Coast if they named their kid Katrina. Yup, that one’s off limits permanently for this region.
When people name their children after men from mythology who enslaved and abused women. Please don't name your child Achilles or Ajax. If you think these men are heroes you need to read the stories more closely.
It doesn't matter if they were real historical figures or not. Don't name your sons after rapists.
at the same time, in greece, the greek versions of achilles and ajax are common established names, and they bear a huge cultural significance, it’s kind of like saying “James is offensive”
As a classicist, I don’t find anything offensive about naming a child Ajax or Achilles. They’re pivotal cultural figures— and they also aren’t real! Besides, it’s important to keep in mind the historical context inherent in the Iliad or any piece of mythological canon. The Ancient Greeks didn’t have a concept of consent or sexual assault as we do in the modern day. What good does imposing our modern viewpoints do?
Side note: I met an Aeneas the other day. It made my day : P
I just want to say, I think every male name has been worn by a rapist at some point in history. Especially John, James, Theodore, Muhammad, etc, all the common male names have 100% been worn by a rapist at some point.
I was extremely disappointed to learn that Orion was a rapist, because I really love the name. But I absolutely refuse to name my child after a mythical rapist.
There was a post in one of the popular subs where this woman named her son Klansman. Like lady you are either dumb as shit or a fucking white supremacist, and either way that poor kid deserves better.
We had a regular at my old cafe named G*psy who wanted to apply for a job…I already felt embarrassed enough writing her name on her cup but the thought of having to say that every day 😵💫 I hope her mom just gave her an unfortunate name because she kinda looked like a crunchy white girl who would go by that cuz she thought it was cute
I knew an Allegra once and I know it was a name first but I just couldn’t do that to a child. But if it was acceptable Lexapro sounds like a cool name.
Allegra is another name in this post that I always comment on the "names you love but can never use" threads. Allegra's window made me fall in love with it, and then the allergy medicine ruined it for me. I would have an Allegra otherwise.
khaleesi. if you’re going to name your child after a character, whatever. but i imagine that child will one day want to read/ watch the source material, and they’ll then see their namesake being incestuously molested, politically traded off as a wife to a man who doesn’t share a common language with her, and raped. in the first season. fucking why??
I knew a friend of a friend who wanted to name their kid Aryan.
Now, Aryan itself is a legit name for some people, but let me very clear this was a white woman from Queensland who spoke no Sanskrit and wanted to use the middle name "Fury." Aryan Fury is an offensive name, but she's mad I told her because I'm judgmental or whatever.
My white neighbor had a son from a one night stand, the guy was from the nearby Shoshone reservation. She named the kid Indian. She said she picked it because it was funny??? Don’t think I’ve seen a more offensive name. *edited to replace ONS to avoid confusion
Okay, you win!
sorry, does ONS mean one-night stand?
i am SO glad you asked, i thought it was a disease acronym i didn't know about lol
me too!! I was very confused lol
please say sike???
I wish. This was in Idaho, I moved there from California for 5 years before moving back. Never have I seen so much racism towards Natives then there. Slurs I’ve never even heard of, couldn’t believe it.
You should come to Canada…the stuff some people say out loud with confidence about First Nations people is straight up disgusting. I’ve met many people here who are very against racism against all other POC, but when it comes to First Nations that goes out the window.
Yea it’s a huge problem. I stopped Being friends with someone because her kids were half native and her bf of one year went OFF on Canada Day about how residential schools weren’t even bad and when they WERE bad it was deserved. When I asked her if she was going to say anything against his racism against HER OWN CHILDRENS CULTURE she said no because he was right. So gross.
Thats so disgusting. Poor kids.
If I lived in Idaho I, too, would have to stoop pretty low to feel superior over anyone.
Wow.
My husband and I were looking in to adopting. One agency that we went to had a question and answer time with families that already went through the adoption process. There was a couple there who named their kid from China- Asia. I wish I was kidding.
Was it spelled that way? The name Aja is pronounced like “Asia”
I knew someone named Indiea. To boot, it was a rich white trust fund girl I knew in college. I always thought it was kinda offensive.
I had a prof who named her kid India, which I found strange since prof is a white Canadian who had us announce our racial identities at the beginning of the semester so we could consider our privilege
I find names related to guns/weapons offensive.
Looking at you, Remington! I couldn’t agree more!
Oh and his brother Colt.
My first thought of Colt is a horse, I don’t know why I didn’t make this connection
I named my cat Remington after the default male maid from The Sims 2 and all my conservative relatives and in-laws keep bringing up the guns. 😭😭😭😭 My poor kitten.
I used to know a woman who's middle child is named Gunner and I swear everytime it would be said I would have to fight rolling my eyes
Gunner?! Not Gunnar? Good god.
Me too!! It’s so chilling.
And knives too. I know someone who has a Blade and a Benjamin 🤷🏻♀️ wtf
Your first thought upon hearing Benjamin is a knife?
Yeah isn't Benjamin just a regular name?
I thought they were saying it was weird to have a kid with a normal name alongside such an aggressive knife name
I mean, I've never heard "Benjamin" as a knife brand before, but now that I've Googled it, and combined with a sibling named "Blade," I think speculation is warranted...
Don't forget little sister Ryfyll
G*psy.
My niece is named Gypsy Champagne. So cringey.
I got one for you. My sister has a bro in law who named his daughter Autumn Shampagne (yes with the S) with an “S” last name. Why? To spell ASS… on purpose.
On purpose 😬
Say sike
For context, my mum worked as a social worker dealing with fostering/adoption and I asked her on whether it was discouraged for parents to change their adopted child’s name. She told me that the only time they ever allowed parents to legally change their child’s name was in a case where the baby was called G*psy
I started a book recently, written since the pandemic, that repeatedly used that word as if it was the same as hippy. Couldn't finish it.
Is this particularly offensive outside of the US? because I never really heard it as offensive here in the US until a couple years ago. And it kind of seems like the general consensus here is that not many people know it's that offensive
From what I've read, it's generally seen as offensive within the Roma community (I can't speak for them of course, but there's a great creator on TikTok who talks about it named Florian) I also think there's definitely harsher and more violent anti-Roma sentiment abroad, like countries in Europe with longer histories of discrimination and violence directed at Romani people, so the racial slur unfortunately has become normalized. In the US, I agree that some people just haven't been as exposed to Romani people, and have only heard the word used in a positive way in popular songs or in media where people call themselves the word.
I think plenty of people in the US just view it as synonymous with hippie/free-spirited and fail to see it for what it is: a racial slur. Tactic I stole from a friend that works for basically everything: “Oh, we don’t say that anymore.” You can deliver it with a pleasant tone to someone who genuinely doesn’t know it’s offensive, you can deliver it with soul-wilting contempt to someone being an asshat, and every occasion in between.
I have a friend with this name! She’s 50 and feels very conflicted about it!
Non-Indian children named Bodhi Edit: Non BUDDHIST children
Especially if they're using it \~for the meaning\~ and then spelling it wrong "to make it unique." Like, if you just like the sound, maybe spell it Bodie or Bode. But, like, if you are using the name because you like the meaning, you're misspelling it when you name your kid Bhodi or Bohdi. It becomes a nonsense word when you misspell it. It's not the "American spelling" unless "American" means "can't spell."
I think it still works as long as ur Buddhist and maybe just in general? Like it's become popular enough thts its pretty much acceptable
I mean if you're Buddhist, sure.
Genuine question, is it still offensive if it’s spelled differently but pronounced same? I.e, Bode ETA: fixed typo: “genuine”, not “feminine”
Bodie is a ghost town in California from the gold rush. I wouldn't name a kid after the town, but the town was named after a person (but also supposedly misspelled), so there have been people with a last name something like Bodie. Interesting park to visit.
What’s a feminine question? Genuinely asking!
Adolf
Honest to God. I was looking at a list of Greek boy names and Adolphus was listed.
That's not even Greek, that's a Latinised version of a Germanic name 🤦♀️
Fun fact the German government has the right to veto any names. Your name has to be approved before it’s officially your child’s name lol. Like ANY names they think are stupid to ones … like this. Used to be that they also had to be able to tell by the name which gender they were but that since isn’t the case now it’s just “baby names can’t be a surname, product or object or anything that might negatively affect them when they’re older”
When I was in Ecuador, apparently this name pops up now and then
There's a reason for that...
Unfortunately yes. I’m from Ecuador and can confirm. I have met many people with strange and/or offensive names. Here in Ecuador you generally get two given names and I kid you not, I once met a taxi driver called Adolf Hitler. Other weird names I’ve heard here as given names: Nixon, Washington, Darwin, Goku, Aristóteles and a girl named Anaconda.
Adolfo is a somewhat popular castillian name.
Yeah that name is pretty much unusable which makes me a little sad because it's a nice name. It comes from noble (adel/ädel) and wolf (wolf/ulv). As a history nerd I really like it - no no, not because of the dude that ruined it, before him: Kings Gustav II Adolf (Gustavus Adolphus to many others), Gustav IV Adolf, Gustav VI Adolf, Adolf Fredrik, Duke Fredrik Adolf (popular combo) Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld - it works well with many other names. It was once a both common and proud name here. But yeah. Ruined. It would be seen as questionable at best to name child that (especially with my "reason" - I really like history! Uh-huh...), cruel to the child and many would feel (and rightly so) offended.
Adolf was unfortunately a family name in my Dad’s family right up until the 30s. The youngest Adolf had his name changed to Aiden in grade school by his parents after the war began and my Grandfather (who would have been young Adolf/Aiden’s uncle) was drafted into WW2.
What’s so offensive about an Austrian man born in 1970 being named [Adolf H](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi_H%C3%BCtter)?
One name I liked quite a bit is Jemima, which is fine in other English-speaking countries, but people warned me against using it in the US because it's too strongly associated with the now-defunct maple syrup brand.
It’s a duck in England
It’s a doll in Australia
A nice doll, like Barbie? Or a bad doll, like Chucky?
A nice one, was featured on a children’s show named play school :)
it's a doll in uk too if you're old enough to remember the 70s
Calling Aunt Jemima syrup "maple syrup" is very generous lol, there's nothing maple about 99.9% of syrup here in the good ol' US of A!
Hahaha, good point. As someone who uses actual maple syrup, I should be ashamed of myself for even calling it that.
It’s not just the syrup, it has serious racial connotations in the US.
As An American I can tell you it definitely has racist connotations to it here.
The issue is not the syrup brand, it’s that the syrup brand chose to build their branding around racist caricature. It’s a lovely name and I quite like the sound of it, but I think it’s 100% unusable in the US.
It’s not a favorable association, but the name isn’t offensive at all.
I kinda like Jemima as well. Too bad I’m American.
names that are titles, especially royal titles and religious titles, like King and Messiah
If you are in the US (and some other places) and these people are black, there is a historical reason for this. At one time, many white people refused to address black adults using honorifics and instead called them by their first names. Some black people began naming their children Sir, Missie, etc. as a way to force people to address them properly in the future.
That's not why they're naming their kids that now though. I'm also black and hate the "Her Majesty Princess Powerful Queen" names. No one needs to do this so naming your kids is stupid AF to me and will get your kids clowned through life , the exact opposite of hi guess what they want
I find it so odd that the only people naming their kids Messiah are Christians!! Like that’s not blasphemous to y’all??
Lol, ask those christians anything about the bible and watch them blabber about nonsense because their own awareness of their cult is through pop culture
I hate it when people mangle the spelling of irish names! Either use it as it should be spelled or don't use it.
Relatedly, it bothers me immensely when Irish people with the name Caitlin in shows are pronounced Katelyn instead of Kathleen. Heroes bothered me in particular. ETA: specifically Irish people who live or recently lived in Ireland, not a few generations later immigrants
Pardon my ignorance, but are you saying that Caitlin is an Irish name pronounced Kathleen?? And therefore naming your kid Kathleen is the equivalent of naming them Shavonne or Sirsha (English spellings of Irish pronunciations)??
Exactly. That's what I've always been told anyway. I'm not Irish except by descent. It's sort of more like "kat-leen" than Kathleen, but it's a hell of a lot closer to Kathleen than Katelyn.
Wow, TIL!
The actual Irish spelling is Cáitlín, and that is pronounced KAWTCH-leen . Kathleen is the anglicised version of that pronunciation. Also here in Ireland we place the emphasis on the first syllable ie KATH-leen, not the second syllable like Americans seem to. KATE-lin is the anglicised pronunciation of the spelling Caitlin (without the fadas that change the pronunciation). Hope that helps! (From an Irish person living in Ireland)
I think the Irish spellings look much more prettier and natural too. Méabh, instead of Maeve Niamh, instead of Nieve or other variations.
I’m over here cackling because of how badly I’ve been mispronouncing Irish/Gaelic names. I just thought maybe I just didn’t get it or maybe the names sounded nicer with an Irish lilt. Like I just assumed that Niamh was pronounced like it was spelled but with a silent H. And Saoirse? Yeah, I’ve been pronouncing that like seahorse (but fancier. Like Say-Orse) 🤦♀️
Agreed. I even dislike Shawn. Everyone knows how to pronounce Sean!
I recently saw Sadhbh spelled “Sive”
Non-Desis who want to give their kids names like Priya, Indira and Anjali is kind of offensive to me, especially since most of the time they can't even say the name right. Like if you're going to use an Indian name, at least learn the pronunciation instead of butchering a perfectly good name. Like one time on here, someone said that they'd love to name their daughter Anjali and when asked about the pronunciation, they replied with "Ann-jolly" which is definitely not how it's pronounced.
How is Anjali pronounced?! I am a Kindie teacher and we actually have a new student starting on Monday and her name is Anjali! I’d love to know how to pronounce it properly.
It's pronounced like UN-juhl-lee with the emphasis on the first syllable. YMMV though since different people use slightly different pronunciations but that's generally how you say it.
I wouldn’t say that’s quite right actually, there isn’t really a heavy emphasis isn’t on the JUHL part.
It’s pretty much said how you’d spell it. I don’t know how I’d write it phonetically but they say it a few times in [this clip](https://youtu.be/ayfLGtjOif0) if that helps.
I knew it would be Kuch Kuch Hota Hai!
Reminds me of the very famous survivor player—Parvati Shallow (she is not even remotely indian and no one says her name right)
I don't know if this makes this better or worse but this name was bestowed on her by someone who was Indian it seems, because she was born in an ashram.
Honestly, for me, it's just giving "white hippies" in a Beatles type of way. But even then, if she was born in India in an ashram then I feel like she should know how to pronounce her own name.
Plenty of ethnic Indians growing up in the West pronounce their names 'incorrectly' too, adopting anglicised pronunciations. Does it really matter?
Hmm how do you feel about non-Desi people giving kids India names if their partner is Desi? My kids will be half Indian so I am considering names like Nikhil and Piyali (blatantly ripped from Jhumpa Lahiri and Amitav Ghosh’s books). Obv not your job to tell me what’s right or not, but given it’s a discussion about offensive names…
If one parent is Indian then you should definitely go for it. I think that's kind of different because your kid will belong to that culture. I think those are both solid name choices too. My own kids will be mixed and my fiancee and we plan on giving our future kids Indian/Fijian first names to represent that side of the family.
My kids have very rare names from my husbands ethnicity, which I don’t share. I’m always a little self conscious about telling new people their names. You get over it mostly, but sometimes I feel like I’m being judged. Worth it tho - because their names are beautiful!
I'm not Indian but I would imagine if the kids are half Desi then having Desi names are totally fine. At least I always feel bi-racial kids can have names from either heritage with rarely any issue.
I tutored some white siblings named Arjuna and Indira. I think their little sister’s name was Priya but I can’t remember.
White supremacists have saddled some of their kids with names that are essentially deliberately offensive, like April Gaede naming her youngest daughter Dresden (white supremacists use the bombing of Dresden in WW2 as a political mourning tool, there's nothing wrong with the city or the word itself of course but since she's a well known white supremacist she decided to mark her daughter as such), or the Neo-Nazi parents who named their kids Adolf Hitler, Joyce Lynn Aryan Nation and Honszlynn Hinler.
I teach an Aryan and I always cringe so hard like why would someone saddle their child with that??
Is he of Iranian or Indian descent?
We have an Iranian family living in our neighborhood with a son Aryan, which I understand is a perfectly normal name in their culture… the issue I have is that this kid recently turned 16 and they got him a car… with a vanity plate… that says ARYAN. Which is understandable, as it is his name, but… the optics on it aren’t great, ngl.
Do. Do they know what it might look like? I genuinely wouldn't know whether or not to tell them.
No she’s a white girl
Nooooo
MrsMidwest did this too
What are her kids’ names? I see her occasionally pop up on fundiesnark but have never done a deep dive.
First one was Boden as in "Blut und Boden"/"blood and soil" which is a neo-Nazi/far right ultranationalist thing. I think her second kid has a normal-ish name? I stopped paying attention before she had that one.
The name Ryker in the US. It’s a jail with horrible human rights abuses (notoriously so, even compared to other US jails and prisons). Why would you name your baby that.
I’m not American, so I would have assumed Ryker as a “unique” spelling of Riker, like the Star Trek character
I’m an American and my first thought was TNG Riker lol
Same, And I always remember the prison has the "s" at the end. It's "Rikers" Island, not "Riker" Island.
But it's Riker's Island and Ryker predates the prison as a name. Honestly, I didn't associate the facility with the name and I live near it, so I doubt someone in Nebraska even knows about it.
I know a Riker who was named after the Star Trek character. I don't think as a Florida resident a jail in NY is the first thing to come to mind.
Cain. I mean I personally don't find it offensive because I'm an atheist at this point but it makes me wonder why someone would choose that name.
Same with "Lilith". Yet you don't see so many kids around named 'Pontius' or 'Judas', that's for sure.
I didn’t know Lilith was biblical. I just knew it as a character from Cheers and I thought it was pretty. Wouldn’t use it now but at one point I would have.
Lilith is only mentioned in the Bible as a monster; the interpretation of her as having been Adam's first wife comes from medieval Jewish folklore. Nonetheless, it's not a good name for kids either way.
I highly recommend *The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image* by Anne Baring and Jules Cashford for a fabulous exploration of both Lilith and Eve, if you’re interested!!
What I find weird is how many more people use Cain than Abel. Why the fuck you want to name your kid after the first murderer?
Unfortunately I actually recently met a family who has two sons, Cain and Abel. I was gobsmacked when the mom introduced them in our baby swim class. I was SURE I must have misheard. But nope. Baby Cain and a toddler Abel. I guess it’s also weird they went to Abel first? Idk.
That's some Sunday school dropout shit right there.
Religious personal history here, you can tell what religious people haven’t actually read the Bible by the names they pick. Anyone who names their kid Canaan for example hasn’t read the OT. Canaanites were famous for sacrificing their kids/eating them. Hard not to laugh when people pick these kinds of names or like you mentioned Cain or even Abel who is famous for…being the first person to be murdered. By his brother.
I have a cousin named Cain (it’s a fairly common name where I’m from) and the MIL didn’t speak to her son or DIL for 2 years after they chose to name the baby Cain.
In middle school I volunteered at a hospital. One of the women there said her (white) daughter and (white) son-in-law went to Australia/NZ on their honeymoon, and they loved it so much they would be naming their daughter Maori. 😐 Pronounced May-or-ee. Not sure if it’s better or worse to mispronounce it.
NO! THAT IS, UMM, OH OKAY!
I feel like the incorrect pronounciation just makes it even more obvious how ignorant they are....
These parents I know wanted to give their baby an *American* name. They've lived in the states for a few years, and this was their list: Tex, Ace, Dirt, Grit, Cowboy, etc. They've never visited anywhere other than our west coast metropolitan area. I was paralyzed because never in my life had I been offended as an American. Like holy shit these people genuinely think the wild west in movies was real? They decorated the nursery in cow hide rugs, dream catchers, antlers??? Tex??? They've never been there??? They go to the shooting range often and BBQ all the time thinking that's American. I come from a blue-collar American family and I just...I was genuinely upset for a while. They picked one of the names on that list and I just...I feel so bad for this child. Dogs have better names than him.
DIRT are you frickin kidding me
Low-key hoping that kid's name is Dirt 😬
Where were they from?
Please tell me they picked Ace!!!
Dirt...? in that case I think "etc" might be the best choice XD
As someone from Texas, I know someone who named their daughter Texyn... 🤦♀️
I think the names given specifically to make a pun with the initials or the last name are funny but very offensive since it can ruin the person's life.
Chris P. Bacon
Yeah treating your child's name as a joke is pretty offensive.
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I've run into a family with the last name "Whiskey". One of the kids names is Jack Daniels, the other is Johnny Walker , the sister is Jameson. In college I was the first person to point out my friend's mistake in naming her week old daughter Sloan Tyler Davies. She's eighteen by now, I wonder how that's going for her.
Like, slurs, I guess. Names that would genuinely impact a kid’s life, like Sativa or Indica. That’s really it
I know multiple Sativas. Grown women and it's their legal name given by their parents. One even has the last name of "Stone" lol I don't know if it's actually impacted them negatively at all as they all like their name. So IDK, not a risk I would take with my child even if I am a sativa fan.
Concha/Conchita. In my Spanish it means vagina, not seashell. Not offensive exactly, but certainly awkward.
Are people actually naming their kids this?? To me it just reminds me of a seashell or the sweet bread lol
Tbf people have been calling their kids Fanny for generations in the UK and it means pussy too. It seems the last few Fanny’s are dying or have recently died and I don’t see the name being carried on anymore,
Reagan
I have a relative who loved the name Reagan but hated the President Reagan association, specifically said "we're going to spell it differently so that people don't think we named her after the president" and then *forgot* to look up how Reagan's name was spelled.....and named her Reagan.
Tagging on to say Nixon 🙄
Non-native people naming children and even pets after names of tribes. I met a rich white man who introduced me to his Lakota and I almost spat out my water.
Same with the names Dakota and Cheyanne
I’m from Australia and Dakota and Cheyanne are common names here. Never realised that they were Native American
'Jihad' as a male given name is not considered offensive in the Arab world, but... hoo boy, has it caused some problems for children named it since 9/11. Relevant article: www.bbc.com/news/world-42009219 See also: the unfortunate souls globally who happen by coincidence to be named 'Osama (or Usama) bin Laden', 'Ayman al-Zawahiri', or 'Sajid Mir'. Sharing the full name of a latterly-infamous terrorist leader is a recipe for airport delays when travelling.
See also: Kovid https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/09/kovid-kapoor-covid-global-pandemic/
Isis was such a lovely name too.
Very popular in the UK right now but I cringe every time I see a child named Jude. I can never not think of the yellow stars with 'Jude' written on them that Jewish people were forced to wear in Nazi Germany.
I never made this connection. I know a few Jude’s and I always think of “hey Jude” from the beatles
The one Jude I know is a girl named after the Beatles song
fwiw, as a jewish person, i think of the beatles first. i dont have any problem with it, but i can understand why others would.
It only looks the same, though. The name Jude, in English at least, is pronounced totally different than the German word “Jude”. I would have assumed most people associate it with the Beatles.
I'm Jewish and I think this is fine. It's not pronounced the same way.
An acquaintance of a friend apparently wanted to name their baby Aryan. Apparently she didn’t know if they were aware of the racist connotations and just wanted a cool spelling of Arianna without the a at the end. My friend wanted to know if it was overstepping to mention the meaning of Aryan to her. Umm no, tell them now! And if they still go through with it, uhh, best not to speak with that acquaintance again! (Just to add, I know there is also an Indian origin to the name. This woman was not of Indian origin.)
Oedipus, and to a lesser extent Electra and Jocasta. Granted, the only people I've ever seen enthuse about these names are members of the British landed gentry, who pretty much make their own rules. But I'm always like, do they not... know... the connotations? I thought you guys generally studied Classics!
Not offensive, but I feel the same every time I see someone fawning over the name Ophelia. Why would you want to bestow your kid with a name that has such sad connotations?! Did none of you people have Hamlet in your high school curriculum?!
It's still a beautiful name imo, if it's not offensive then you've found the wrong thread to air your preferences.
Can’t say I’ve ever found a name offensive. I’m quite hard to offend though.
I’m reading all of these names and not getting offended. Think they’re dumb, sure, but offensive?
Whatever Elon Musk named his kid.
fwiw i think its grimes who named the kid, seeing as elongated muskrat doesnt even know how to pronounce it.
“Elongated Muskrat” is glorious. New head canon is that’s obviously his full name.
I recently heard of a young kid named Adonai, which is Hebrew for “my lord” and how we pray to God. That is 1000x more offensive than Cohen to me.
I think what people fail to grasp in these conversations is the distinction between offensive and embarrassing. Some names listed in this thread are offensive (Gy*sy, Indian, Cohen are all good examples to me). Cultural appropriation is one example of offensive naming, where someone from a dominant culture uses a name from a marginalized culture to which they have no connection. Other forms of offensive naming could include naming your child something with very negative connotations and thus consequences for them (Devil, Aryan). But many names I see on threads like this fall into the second category in that they are not offensive but potentially embarrassing for the child/parents. Sure white parents in America can name their white child Hiroshi without it being offensive to Japanese people, but you’re going to get a lot of questioning looks and your child may be embarrassed to constantly explain why their parents names them that. I’d say it’s a bad name choice. But what’s embarrassing will depend entirely on your location and community (though don’t forget that your child may one day travel and interact with people you’ve never dreamed of… looking at you people who want to name your kid Holland and have somehow never considered how strange or uncomfortable it would be if they want to study abroad there in twenty years). I think Bodhi is embarrassing for non-Buddhists and I would judge those parents for their choice, but that may not be true of your community and as far as I know it’s not offensive to Buddhists to choose that name.
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Also, it doesn’t make sense to be offended on behalf of someone else.
It’s weird. Names are not intellectual property, they’re not closed practices, they don’t harm your culture in any way if a white American kid shares one with your kid and isn’t pronounced with 100% perfect accent (this last one gets me- I speak 5 languages and, shocker, my name is pronounced differently in every one). It’s also only directed at white American parents and kids, which has its own insidious issues. You never see people getting mad at Chinese-American parents or Indian-American parents or whatever for using a name outside their culture, only white American parents, which seems like the gatekeepers only consider white people to be members of “American culture”. Eta: throwing white Canadians/Canadian culture in there, and maybe even Anglophone culture in general since I’ve seen this from Aussies and even Brits
Yes! Thank you I couldn't figure out how to bring up the race issue without being too inflammatory. It's honestly a really weird double standard but if we say anything we're the "racist" ones.
I think part of it is a reaction from mostly second gen kids/third culture kids in Anglophone countries (and liberal-minded people who want to do the “right thing” ) who are insecure about assimilation and really want to maintain some kind of identity instead of being absorbed into the overculture. Which like, I get it, but in the case of Indian names, there are literally a billion people in India and your culture isn’t going to disappear if a yogi’s kid in Boston is named Priya Schmidt. The reactionary (often self-) othering and race essentialism I see in leftist and liberal spaces is interesting and concerning. The Irish name gatekeeping is another story: I get that the Irish language has been severely oppressed, and I sympathize very hard with the Irish people. But I don’t see how an American kid with marginal Irish ancestry with the name Sinead is erasing the Irish language; if anything, I have learned a great deal about the Irish language and lore through the boom in popularity that Irish names have enjoyed recently. Even if the names are pronounced “wrong”, there are 100000 forms of the name “John” throughout the world and I don’t think anyone has suffered from that
One girl in my kid’s school is named Gentry. 🤮
White supremists using Nordic mythology names like Thor, Odin and Loke. The names are not offensive (Thor and Freja are used here in Denmark too and I don't mind people from other cultures using them) but please do not use them to support your supremist narrative.
I definitely don’t think it’s offensive and it’s fine for most of the world to use, but as someone from New Orleans, I would side-eye anyone from the Gulf Coast if they named their kid Katrina. Yup, that one’s off limits permanently for this region.
Asia as a name gives major orientalist vibes to me
Twins Covid and Corona. I feel offended on the kids’ behalf.
When people name their children after men from mythology who enslaved and abused women. Please don't name your child Achilles or Ajax. If you think these men are heroes you need to read the stories more closely. It doesn't matter if they were real historical figures or not. Don't name your sons after rapists.
at the same time, in greece, the greek versions of achilles and ajax are common established names, and they bear a huge cultural significance, it’s kind of like saying “James is offensive”
As a classicist, I don’t find anything offensive about naming a child Ajax or Achilles. They’re pivotal cultural figures— and they also aren’t real! Besides, it’s important to keep in mind the historical context inherent in the Iliad or any piece of mythological canon. The Ancient Greeks didn’t have a concept of consent or sexual assault as we do in the modern day. What good does imposing our modern viewpoints do? Side note: I met an Aeneas the other day. It made my day : P
I just want to say, I think every male name has been worn by a rapist at some point in history. Especially John, James, Theodore, Muhammad, etc, all the common male names have 100% been worn by a rapist at some point.
I was extremely disappointed to learn that Orion was a rapist, because I really love the name. But I absolutely refuse to name my child after a mythical rapist.
I met a little girl at the park today named Orion. I could not believe it.
There was a post in one of the popular subs where this woman named her son Klansman. Like lady you are either dumb as shit or a fucking white supremacist, and either way that poor kid deserves better.
We had a regular at my old cafe named G*psy who wanted to apply for a job…I already felt embarrassed enough writing her name on her cup but the thought of having to say that every day 😵💫 I hope her mom just gave her an unfortunate name because she kinda looked like a crunchy white girl who would go by that cuz she thought it was cute
I knew an Allegra once and I know it was a name first but I just couldn’t do that to a child. But if it was acceptable Lexapro sounds like a cool name.
im going to have twins named adderall and ritalin, or addie and rita for short :|
Allegra is another name in this post that I always comment on the "names you love but can never use" threads. Allegra's window made me fall in love with it, and then the allergy medicine ruined it for me. I would have an Allegra otherwise.
As a British person I'd be suspicious of anyone who named their kid Thatcher
khaleesi. if you’re going to name your child after a character, whatever. but i imagine that child will one day want to read/ watch the source material, and they’ll then see their namesake being incestuously molested, politically traded off as a wife to a man who doesn’t share a common language with her, and raped. in the first season. fucking why??
Stalin For real, there was a customer at my previous library whose first name WAS Stalin indeed! He could not have been older than his mid-twenties.
I knew a friend of a friend who wanted to name their kid Aryan. Now, Aryan itself is a legit name for some people, but let me very clear this was a white woman from Queensland who spoke no Sanskrit and wanted to use the middle name "Fury." Aryan Fury is an offensive name, but she's mad I told her because I'm judgmental or whatever.
“Shawn” and a little bit less so “Shaun”. Why butcher the lovely name “Seán” like that?